Lord Beerus wrote:People saying that Dragon Ball's core audience isn't children. Even though the creator of Dragon Ball has outright said that he writes Dragon Ball stories for young boys.

I can't help but wonder if children are the franchise's intended core audience, but that in reality, adults make up the majority. Reason I bring this up is because of what people have observed when going to see DBS:Broly. It was mostly guys ages 20-50.
Not saying they should shift gears and cater to grown-ups now, though.

I'd be interested in that as well. My guess is that the audience skews older than the intended target in part because the audience grew up with the franchise.

I think so too. And the child demographic is nowhere near as large as it was 30 years ago. They do need to keep the kids interested to ensure a future generation of fans, but for now, millenials seem to be the ones that bring most of the profit for this franchise.

They are actually catering to grown ups though. Look at the merch. Most of them are for 15+ age group. Some Heroes stuff are for pre teens, but that's about it.

The intended audience is mostly PR stuff from my experience. Every creator/owner will welcome every age group to like their franchise, but the actual main audience is almost always set. Some manage to break out and appeal to just about every age group(Ghibli films is one such example), but they are exceptions.

I can't help but wonder if children are the franchise's intended core audience, but that in reality, adults make up the majority. Reason I bring this up is because of what people have observed when going to see DBS:Broly. It was mostly guys ages 20-50.
Not saying they should shift gears and cater to grown-ups now, though.

I'd be interested in that as well. My guess is that the audience skews older than the intended target in part because the audience grew up with the franchise.

I think so too. And the child demographic is nowhere near as large as it was 30 years ago. They do need to keep the kids interested to ensure a future generation of fans, but for now, millenials seem to be the ones that bring most of the profit for this franchise.

At this point, it makes zero sense for Toriyama/Toei/Toyotaro to insist on keeping things so kid-oriented when the majority of the fanbase aren't kids. Many other Shonen franchises do better at catering their older fanbases (with some even making full-blown Seinen spin-offs).

ABED wrote:I'd be interested in that as well. My guess is that the audience skews older than the intended target in part because the audience grew up with the franchise.

I think so too. And the child demographic is nowhere near as large as it was 30 years ago. They do need to keep the kids interested to ensure a future generation of fans, but for now, millenials seem to be the ones that bring most of the profit for this franchise.

At this point, it makes zero sense for Toriyama/Toei/Toyotaro to insist on keeping things so kid-oriented when the majority of the fanbase aren't kids. Many other Shonen franchises do better at catering their older fanbases (with some even making full-blown Seinen spin-offs).

The kid-oriented tone has more to do with Toriyama wanting it to be that way. He is into silly, lighthearted stuff. He said so many times before. As long as they go back to him for ideas, it'll probably stay that way.
Also, as I've said, it makes sense for them to be mindful of the kid demographic since they'll be the next generation of paying adults.

Michsi wrote:
I think so too. And the child demographic is nowhere near as large as it was 30 years ago. They do need to keep the kids interested to ensure a future generation of fans, but for now, millenials seem to be the ones that bring most of the profit for this franchise.

At this point, it makes zero sense for Toriyama/Toei/Toyotaro to insist on keeping things so kid-oriented when the majority of the fanbase aren't kids. Many other Shonen franchises do better at catering their older fanbases (with some even making full-blown Seinen spin-offs).

The kid-oriented tone has more to do with Toriyama wanting it to be that way. He is into silly, lighthearted stuff. He said so many times before. As long as they go back to him for ideas, it'll probably stay that way.
Also, as I've said, it makes sense for them to be mindful of the kid demographic since they'll be the next generation of paying adults.

While I agree that Toriyama’s stories are lighter and more kid friendly nowadays, that’s still on Toei to not use blood or to direct Toriyama’s stories with a slightly darker/more serious tone when needed.
Toyotaro, for example, includes blood in his own manga so it’s not like nowadays Toriyama is scared to see his characters bleeding.
The true reason for the lack of blood and more violence is, in my opinion, that Toei wants to be able to sell Dragon Ball to every country with no problems which is why they have dumbed things down a little.

zarmack wrote:
At this point, it makes zero sense for Toriyama/Toei/Toyotaro to insist on keeping things so kid-oriented when the majority of the fanbase aren't kids. Many other Shonen franchises do better at catering their older fanbases (with some even making full-blown Seinen spin-offs).

The kid-oriented tone has more to do with Toriyama wanting it to be that way. He is into silly, lighthearted stuff. He said so many times before. As long as they go back to him for ideas, it'll probably stay that way.
Also, as I've said, it makes sense for them to be mindful of the kid demographic since they'll be the next generation of paying adults.

While I agree that Toriyama’s stories are lighter and more kid friendly nowadays, that’s still on Toei to not use blood or to direct Toriyama’s stories with a slightly darker/more serious tone when needed.
Toyotaro, for example, includes blood in his own manga so it’s not like nowadays Toriyama is scared to see his characters bleeding.
The true reason for the lack of blood and more violence is, in my opinion, that Toei wants to be able to sell Dragon Ball to every country with no problems which is why they have dumbed things down a little.

That's possible. Someone who follows Kitaro mentioned that this series can get pretty dark, so this shows that the time slot isn't really the reason why DB kept things "kid-friendly".

zarmack wrote:
At this point, it makes zero sense for Toriyama/Toei/Toyotaro to insist on keeping things so kid-oriented when the majority of the fanbase aren't kids. Many other Shonen franchises do better at catering their older fanbases (with some even making full-blown Seinen spin-offs).

The kid-oriented tone has more to do with Toriyama wanting it to be that way. He is into silly, lighthearted stuff. He said so many times before. As long as they go back to him for ideas, it'll probably stay that way.
Also, as I've said, it makes sense for them to be mindful of the kid demographic since they'll be the next generation of paying adults.

While I agree that Toriyama’s stories are lighter and more kid friendly nowadays, that’s still on Toei to not use blood or to direct Toriyama’s stories with a slightly darker/more serious tone when needed.
Toyotaro, for example, includes blood in his own manga so it’s not like nowadays Toriyama is scared to see his characters bleeding.
The true reason for the lack of blood and more violence is, in my opinion, that Toei wants to be able to sell Dragon Ball to every country with no problems which is why they have dumbed things down a little.

Many/some countries around the world are far more tolerant of blood and violence in children's media than Japan and the US, so that's hardly the reason (and Toei went darker with the series than Toriyama has numerous times. Just compare for example 90's Bardock to DB Minus, Toei's original ideas for BoG with the movie we got after Toriyama got involved, or even Toei's Broly to Toriyama's Broly). The only real explanation for the lighter tone nowadays is Toriyama's own taste.

The kid-oriented tone has more to do with Toriyama wanting it to be that way. He is into silly, lighthearted stuff. He said so many times before. As long as they go back to him for ideas, it'll probably stay that way.
Also, as I've said, it makes sense for them to be mindful of the kid demographic since they'll be the next generation of paying adults.

While I agree that Toriyama’s stories are lighter and more kid friendly nowadays, that’s still on Toei to not use blood or to direct Toriyama’s stories with a slightly darker/more serious tone when needed.
Toyotaro, for example, includes blood in his own manga so it’s not like nowadays Toriyama is scared to see his characters bleeding.
The true reason for the lack of blood and more violence is, in my opinion, that Toei wants to be able to sell Dragon Ball to every country with no problems which is why they have dumbed things down a little.

Many/some countries around the world are far more tolerant of blood and violence in children's media than Japan and the US, so that's hardly the reason (and Toei went darker with the series than Toriyama has numerous times. Just compare for example 90's Bardock to DB Minus, Toei's original ideas for BoG with the movie we got after Toriyama got involved, or even Toei's Broly to Toriyama's Broly). The only real explanation for the lighter tone nowadays is Toriyama's own taste.

There’s no doubt Toei used to go darker than Toriyama, but they also went lighter (see GT) and continue to do so by not showing blood apart from very few specific episodes, which I think were mostly episodes directed by Kohei Hatano.
The time slot excuse doesn’t hold up considering how Kitaro has blood and One Piece too has blood.
My Hero Academia also has a lot of blood and violence yet it’s the same genre as Dragon Ball with the same target audience.
At this point I don’t know what to think. If what you say is true, that other countries are not as strict with blood, then it’s hard to know who is to blame for the lack of blood and why they decided to not have it.
Kai definitely got censored here and there so it’s possible that Fuji TV is strict with it, but then Super has some blood here and there so it’s obvious they are allowed to show it but refused to do so for whatever reason I still miss.
It’s especially crazy to think about how some episodes even have blood while others don’t... what’s the reason for that? You either never have blood, or have it. Goku has never bled in Super, for example. That’s incredibly weird.
I don’t need them to always be bathing in their blood but I also don’t like seeing characters finishing a battle and looking fresh apart from some missing piece of clothing.

People saying that Dragon Ball Z had less of a focus on martial arts compared to Dragon Ball with the reasoning that there was more of a focus on Ki attacks in major battles in Dragon Ball Z. Despite the fact that Ki attacks are a form of a martial arts.

Spoiler:

Akira Toriyama wrote:My policy is to try and forget things once they’re over. Since if I don’t discard the old and focus on what’s new, I’ll overload my brain capacity. I still haven’t lived down going, “Who the heck is Tao Pai-pai?” that one time I was talking with Ei’ichiro Oda-kun. But the fact that there are still people reading the series after all this time… All I can say is; “thank you.” Really, that’s all.

Akira Toriyama wrote:Drawing Dragon Ball again reminded me of two things--how much I love it, and how much I never want to do it again.

Kunzait_83 wrote:And if you're upset because all this new material completely invalidates the tabletop RPG rulebook-sized statistical system and flowchart for the characters' "canonical Power Levels" that you'd been working on painstakingly for the last bunch of years now... well I don't think there's a kind, non-blunt way of saying this, but that's 100% entirely your own misguided fault for buying so deeply into all this nonsensical garbage in the first place. And that you also have IMMENSELY skewed and comically backwards priorities in what you think is most important and needed to make a good Dragon Ball story.

Zephyr wrote:Goodness, they wrote idiotic drivel in a children's cartoon meant to advertise toys!? Again!? For the ninetieth episode in a row!? Somebody stop the presses! We have to voice our concern over these Super important issues!

FortuneSSJ wrote:Doesn't matter who wins, people would still complain about power levels.

MR.Mark wrote:I can't wait for a future arc of Super where Roshi takes on a resurrected Raditz who achieved Ultra Instinct by watching Goku do it while he was in hell.

Kamiccolo9 wrote:Fair enough, I concede. Sean Schemmel probably has some kind of hidden talent. Maybe he is an expert at Minesweeper. You're right; calling him "talentless" wasn't fair.

People saying that Dragon Ball Z had less of a focus on martial arts compared to Dragon Ball with the reasoning that there was more of a focus on Ki attacks in major battles in Dragon Ball Z. Despite the fact that Ki attacks are a form of a martial arts.

Big time. Though this type of ignorance is mainly found in Western fans who are unaware of the franchise's genre origins.

Twists that don't play fair with the audience. Even if there isn't a set up to a twist, I'm okay if it doesn't contradict anything. In the Garlic Jr. arc, when Kuririn and Piccolo reveal they conned Garlic and weren't infected, it was a bad mislead because their eyes were shown to have changed, indicating they were infected. It wasn't simply behavioral.

The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott
Happiness is climate, not weather.

ABED wrote:Twists that don't play fair with the audience. Even if there isn't a set up to a twist, I'm okay if it doesn't contradict anything. In the Garlic Jr. arc, when Kuririn and Piccolo reveal they conned Garlic and weren't infected, it was a bad mislead because their eyes were shown to have changed, indicating they were infected. It wasn't simply behavioral.

Indeed. Worse still is twists that kind of ruin an arc in retrospect, even if you did predict the twist from the beginning... Lookin' at you, Tournament Of Power, with all stakes being reversed at the end because #17 does the thing whoever won was always going to anyway, and just brought back everything that was supposed to have been permanently erased from existence...

Akira Toriyama wrote:Like many things people endlessly insist that I said, I never said this.

ABED wrote:Twists that don't play fair with the audience. Even if there isn't a set up to a twist, I'm okay if it doesn't contradict anything. In the Garlic Jr. arc, when Kuririn and Piccolo reveal they conned Garlic and weren't infected, it was a bad mislead because their eyes were shown to have changed, indicating they were infected. It wasn't simply behavioral.

Indeed. Worse still is twists that kind of ruin an arc in retrospect, even if you did predict the twist from the beginning... Lookin' at you, Tournament Of Power, with all stakes being reversed at the end because #17 does the thing whoever won was always going to anyway, and just brought back everything that was supposed to have been permanently erased from existence...

There's never any indication that the person who won the TOP was going to make the same wish #17 was. And the the stake are still made very apparent just by the virtue of the specific wish that was made by #17. Because if he didn't make that exact wish, Zeno would have destroyed everything.

Spoiler:

Akira Toriyama wrote:My policy is to try and forget things once they’re over. Since if I don’t discard the old and focus on what’s new, I’ll overload my brain capacity. I still haven’t lived down going, “Who the heck is Tao Pai-pai?” that one time I was talking with Ei’ichiro Oda-kun. But the fact that there are still people reading the series after all this time… All I can say is; “thank you.” Really, that’s all.

Akira Toriyama wrote:Drawing Dragon Ball again reminded me of two things--how much I love it, and how much I never want to do it again.

Kunzait_83 wrote:And if you're upset because all this new material completely invalidates the tabletop RPG rulebook-sized statistical system and flowchart for the characters' "canonical Power Levels" that you'd been working on painstakingly for the last bunch of years now... well I don't think there's a kind, non-blunt way of saying this, but that's 100% entirely your own misguided fault for buying so deeply into all this nonsensical garbage in the first place. And that you also have IMMENSELY skewed and comically backwards priorities in what you think is most important and needed to make a good Dragon Ball story.

Zephyr wrote:Goodness, they wrote idiotic drivel in a children's cartoon meant to advertise toys!? Again!? For the ninetieth episode in a row!? Somebody stop the presses! We have to voice our concern over these Super important issues!

FortuneSSJ wrote:Doesn't matter who wins, people would still complain about power levels.

MR.Mark wrote:I can't wait for a future arc of Super where Roshi takes on a resurrected Raditz who achieved Ultra Instinct by watching Goku do it while he was in hell.

Kamiccolo9 wrote:Fair enough, I concede. Sean Schemmel probably has some kind of hidden talent. Maybe he is an expert at Minesweeper. You're right; calling him "talentless" wasn't fair.

ABED wrote:Twists that don't play fair with the audience. Even if there isn't a set up to a twist, I'm okay if it doesn't contradict anything. In the Garlic Jr. arc, when Kuririn and Piccolo reveal they conned Garlic and weren't infected, it was a bad mislead because their eyes were shown to have changed, indicating they were infected. It wasn't simply behavioral.

Indeed. Worse still is twists that kind of ruin an arc in retrospect, even if you did predict the twist from the beginning... Lookin' at you, Tournament Of Power, with all stakes being reversed at the end because #17 does the thing whoever won was always going to anyway, and just brought back everything that was supposed to have been permanently erased from existence...

There's never any indication that the person who won the TOP was going to make the same wish #17 was. And the the stake are still made very apparent just by the virtue of the specific wish that was made by #17. Because if he didn't make that exact wish, Zeno would have destroyed everything.

Anyone from U7 with the exception of Freeza would've made that wish, that was always incredibly clear (setting aside 18's portrayal in that arc). It was kinda ridiculous how they tried to make it seem like Goku wouldn't even have thought of that. I know they're trying really hard with "they're no heroes or even good people, especially Goku" , but it was never believable that they wouldn't have done exactly what 17 did. And had anyone from another universe won, then of course they would've asked for this wish as well, because no way would U7 get erased. So, Zeno's reveal at the end was also pointless.

As for the Garlic Jr. thing- I always thought it was a stylistic thing to make them look evil, not an actual symptom of being infected.

Lord Beerus wrote:Here's another one I have:

People saying that Dragon Ball Z had less of a focus on martial arts compared to Dragon Ball with the reasoning that there was more of a focus on Ki attacks in major battles in Dragon Ball Z. Despite the fact that Ki attacks are a form of a martial arts.

True, but it's presented more as a super power rather than a martial art technique. The fact that you don't think of them as martial art techniques and just your run of the mill energy blast you'd find in superhero comics is what they mean, I think.

People saying that Dragon Ball Z had less of a focus on martial arts compared to Dragon Ball with the reasoning that there was more of a focus on Ki attacks in major battles in Dragon Ball Z. Despite the fact that Ki attacks are a form of a martial arts.

True, but it's presented more as a super power rather than a martial art technique. The fact that you don't think of them as martial art techniques and just your run of the mill energy blast you'd find in superhero comics is what they mean, I think.

I was thinking the same. Plus, when people say "its not focused on martial arts" I think they usually mean the actual fighting choreography. In DB the focus were more on actual martial arts tactics and moves like in the Tournaments and less on Ki stuff. (for example, using the Kamehameha or Tri Beam was something huge back then), while Z opted for more bombastic high speed clashes and Ki attacks were everywhere so the distinction seems more drastic than it is.

Robo4900 wrote:
Indeed. Worse still is twists that kind of ruin an arc in retrospect, even if you did predict the twist from the beginning... Lookin' at you, Tournament Of Power, with all stakes being reversed at the end because #17 does the thing whoever won was always going to anyway, and just brought back everything that was supposed to have been permanently erased from existence...

There's never any indication that the person who won the TOP was going to make the same wish #17 was. And the the stake are still made very apparent just by the virtue of the specific wish that was made by #17. Because if he didn't make that exact wish, Zeno would have destroyed everything.

Anyone from U7 with the exception of Freeza would've made that wish, that was always incredibly clear (setting aside 18's portrayal in that arc). It was kinda ridiculous how they tried to make it seem like Goku wouldn't even have thought of that. I know they're trying really hard with "they're no heroes or even good people, especially Goku" , but it was never believable that they wouldn't have done exactly what 17 did. And had anyone from another universe won, then of course they would've asked for this wish as well, because no way would U7 get erased. So, Zeno's reveal at the end was also pointless.

As for the Garlic Jr. thing- I always thought it was a stylistic thing to make them look evil, not an actual symptom of being infected.

Goku wouldn't have made that wish. He was asked point blank what wish he would have like to have been granted if he were to win the Tournament Of Power, and he said he would have wished for someone strong to fight or something to treat his family. Jiren's wish was stated to be self. Ribrianne's wish was centered around vanity of love. #18 was more concerned about the #17 treating himself to the cruiser he wanted.

The only character who really showed any kind selflessness with what their wish may have been was Vegeta. And even his wish was rooted to specifically to his race in one universe, and really showed no concern for all of the other universes, like Zeno envisioned for.

I mean, the story made it clear that Zeno wanted at least seven universes gone. And that defying him has swift and grave consequences. So while it may not seem wholly altruistic to have a scenario where the main cast wouldn't have wished back the other universes, it not out of the realm of possibility for that kind of scenario to exist.

Especially since it's made very apparent the other universe not only wouldn't have made the same wish, but some of the universe conspired against Universe 7, even before the tournament began. So it's not hard for at least some of the main cast to not really be all that sympathetic to the other universes. It's just very fortunate that one person was that empathetic towards other even though it could have put his own universe at risk.

Spoiler:

Akira Toriyama wrote:My policy is to try and forget things once they’re over. Since if I don’t discard the old and focus on what’s new, I’ll overload my brain capacity. I still haven’t lived down going, “Who the heck is Tao Pai-pai?” that one time I was talking with Ei’ichiro Oda-kun. But the fact that there are still people reading the series after all this time… All I can say is; “thank you.” Really, that’s all.

Akira Toriyama wrote:Drawing Dragon Ball again reminded me of two things--how much I love it, and how much I never want to do it again.

Kunzait_83 wrote:And if you're upset because all this new material completely invalidates the tabletop RPG rulebook-sized statistical system and flowchart for the characters' "canonical Power Levels" that you'd been working on painstakingly for the last bunch of years now... well I don't think there's a kind, non-blunt way of saying this, but that's 100% entirely your own misguided fault for buying so deeply into all this nonsensical garbage in the first place. And that you also have IMMENSELY skewed and comically backwards priorities in what you think is most important and needed to make a good Dragon Ball story.

Zephyr wrote:Goodness, they wrote idiotic drivel in a children's cartoon meant to advertise toys!? Again!? For the ninetieth episode in a row!? Somebody stop the presses! We have to voice our concern over these Super important issues!

FortuneSSJ wrote:Doesn't matter who wins, people would still complain about power levels.

MR.Mark wrote:I can't wait for a future arc of Super where Roshi takes on a resurrected Raditz who achieved Ultra Instinct by watching Goku do it while he was in hell.

Kamiccolo9 wrote:Fair enough, I concede. Sean Schemmel probably has some kind of hidden talent. Maybe he is an expert at Minesweeper. You're right; calling him "talentless" wasn't fair.

ABED wrote:That sort of reversal can work if there's a price. In GT, Goku is able to wish all the destruction on Earth be reversed, but he has to leave and the DB's are removed for an indefinite period.

Well, indeed. It's not just a total reversal of everything that's happened that makes things hunky-dory; it's had impact, and while the damage to earth was repaired, they still had to pay a price.

Even earlier in the show, when the worst of the damage Piccolo did to the world was reversed, Piccolo Jr. was still alive and well, and Goku had to train up not just to surpass the level the elder Piccolo had been at when they fought, but to keep up with whatever intense training Junior was undergoing to ensure he couldn't be beaten by Goku when they next met. The entire 23rd Tenkaichi arc was pretty much dealing with the consequences of all this...

Granted, I think there is still criticism to be levelled at just how quickly and easily things were able to be somewhat reset before the 23rd Tenkaichi, but in general, the original run was pretty good at keeping this stuff to be more a case of trading one set of dire consequences for another, with actually the entire Evil Dragons arc of GT being the final consequences for all this that kind of pays off the fact that even though they did always have to go through hell to make things okay, it was always within the realm of possibility that they could somehow get ahold of the reset switch.

The Freeza arc is an interesting case of all this too; the Freeza arc in full is pretty much the price they have to pay to revive the people killed in the Saiyan arc. They couldn't just hit a reset switch, they had to go to another planet, struggle with Vegeta and the Freeza forces for the balls, make begrudging alliances that would end up lasting a long time, progress and change seriously as people, and eventually topple a fascist space empire to get their friends back. By the time the round of revivals are happening at the end of the Freeza storyline, it feels very clearly like everyone has gone through absolute hell and has earned the brief period of rest they get before Trunks and mecha-Freeza arrive and screw it all up.

Meanwhile, Black arc... Black kills everyone, but Trunks can just go back in time and everything is fine. No consequences for anyone to deal with, really. They failed. The fight in that arc was a total loss. And yet, everything is hunky-dory. For some reason, there is absolutely no consequence for the fact that as hard as everyone fought, they lost. Hard. Not only is this not explored in the arc's actual ending, but the fact they lost is never returned to again; the fact everything is hunky-dory in itself makes it feel like that arc was a win...

And TOP... Big tournament built on these huge stakes, and it turns out everyone was fighting for a prize #17 would guarantee everyone gets anyway... Everyone gets to live even though 9/10 universes failed, and their survival was what they were fighting for. Again, no consequences, so the ending undercuts everything.
It's a real shame, because in the original run, there was constant demonstrations of how to kind of reset everything, but make it feel earned, and yet so far Super has failed at this at every turn. In fact, even Battle Of Gods managed to avert this in a very clever way that makes total sense; the stakes of that story rode on Beerus wanting a good fight, and ultimately while the heroes did lose, Beerus got the fight he wanted, and made a totally in-character and interesting decision to simply accept what he got, let the earth live, and go home.

Resurrection F screwed up quite massively here. Freeza used his sneaky ways to get a win in the fight, and destroy the planet. An interesting and in-character turn for Freeza to take, and quite a contrast to BOG; Freeza wanted his rematch, he got it, and when it didn't go quite as planned, he decided to do what Beerus didn't, and just kill everyone. Unlike Beerus, while both did get their fight, Freeza didn't get what he was looking for out of the fight.
But, instead of the consequences of Freeza destroying everything being explored in some way, instead of some great effort having to be gone through to undo or mitigate the damage, Whis just reverses time, and boom, Freeza's gone, everything is hunky-dory, and until it was vaguely referenced in the TOP arc in dialogue and in Freeza being pretty strong, none of the events of ResF had any impact at all. It was all of zero consequence. Even the fancy new Blue powerup Goku and Vegeta got were entirely unrelated to this, it was all what they'd gained training with Beerus and Whis before realising Freeza was on earth...

Lord Beerus wrote:There's never any indication that the person who won the TOP was going to make the same wish #17 was.

Indeed. Though, Super had set a pattern of zero consequences, so it was pretty obvious the reset button was going to be hit at the end, despite everything else about the story up to that point indicating that yes, all deaths are final, all universe erasures are non-reversible, etc. etc.
It's a turn that hits a reset button in a way that doesn't gel with the arc up to that point. It's bad writing; the entire point of the arc, everything everyone is fighting against, everything the whole story is built around, all reversed in one moment, and ultimately it's not a clever subversion or turn. It's predictable, in fact; they've done the exact same thing before, so not only is it a single example of bad writing, but it's an example of the same piece of bad writing being recycled continually, which -- even for a piece of good writing -- would be tiresome.

A reset button with zero other consequences, even if it did fit in with the entire set-up and everything the stakes of the arc are built on, is troublesome. Hell, if Piccolo hadn't died and Goku hadn't been stuck as a kid, I'd be throwing these same criticisms at the Baby arc... In fact, y'know I think I honestly could just throw these criticisms at the Baby arc anyway... But criticising GT is overplayed at this point, and at least it only made that mistake once, and it did make the effort of doing stuff like what it did with Piccolo to mitigate it, even if it was a bit out-of-no-where, superficial, and weird... Super doesn't try much harder than "don't even worry about it. everything is okay now but we have to continue getting stronger anyway y'know bro"

Lord Beerus wrote:And the the stake are still made very apparent just by the virtue of the specific wish that was made by #17. Because if he didn't make that exact wish, Zeno would have destroyed everything.

The thing is, Zeno had already destroyed everything. It was established from the beginning that all losing universes are erased, and throughout the tournament, Zeno showed with all the casual brutality one would expect, his willingness and ease to simply wipe out all the losing universes from existence. We see these universes go; a big deal is made out of it in every case. Then suddenly at the end, #17 wishes everyone back, which had never been even remotely hinted as a possibility, it completely contradicts all of the stakes of the arc, and ultimately undercuts everything that happened here... The only thing that happens as a result of the TOP occuring is Goku has a new colour he can switch his hair to.

The stakes of the arc were built against the idea of there being an easy reset button that would be pressed at the end with zero other consequences. And yet, here we are.

-

To be clear, I find this failure of writing utterly fascinating, and I enjoy thinking of hypothetical scenarios where this wasn't what happened.
For instance, ResF arc; Freeza destroys earth, killing tons of people. How can they possibly reverse the damage? Beerus is a god of destruction, so he can't do anything. But he's not too happy about earth being gone either; great food, he liked Vegeta, Bulma's very broken up about it and Beerus is starting to be not so much of a cold-hearted dick as he was when he first arrived on earth, etc. So, he suggests they try using the Super Dragon Balls, but Champa has been collecting them already. Where I'm going with this is the U6 tournament takes place as a means of restoring the earth. Suddenly the U6 tournament, which had previously been just an inoffensive distraction with nothing more than just some fun fighting shenanigans becomes to ResF as the 23rd Tenkaichi was to the Piccolo arc. Frost's presence could then be rather more fun, with the extra layer of the lingering hate for Freeza from the last encounter colouring their perceptions of him, which would make the twists with him more engaging.
After the tournament is done, Vegeta has to deal with the fact Goku has saved his ass again. Maybe take this opportunity to do some damage control on Vegeta's characterisation, and have him be surprisingly thankful to Goku about it, given developments in the Boo arc. But of course, he's still a bit of a pompous prick, so it's sort of gratitude with feigned begrudgement.

I'm no professional writer, so this probably sucks(One obvious thing that immediately ruins this is: What about the Namek balls? They have brought back earth once before, yes, but Porunga seems to have no issue doing repeat wishes, at least that was what Dende said about why Porunga should be able to revive Chiaotzu, as I recall), but you can see my point here... The ResF arc is infamously bad in its stakes, and having the destruction of earth be something that lingers and has to be dealt with would not only make for a much more interesting setup to the arc immediately following it, not only fix the problems with stakes that arc had, but also set up for his revival in the TOP being even more begrudged and hated as a decision by those involved... If you still want to bring Freeza into the TOP, that is.
(And if you still want to do the TOP at all... If you want Freeza in the new movie, it wouldn't be that bad a stretch to say the Freeza forces recovered his still-barely-alive remains from earth and he's been readying himself since then... Then just expand the scope of the Black arc a bit, and not only can you put Goku's new hair colour in there, but probably anything else that'd need setting up too)

Akira Toriyama wrote:Like many things people endlessly insist that I said, I never said this.

Lord Beerus wrote:
Goku wouldn't have made that wish. He was asked point blank what wish he would have like to have been granted if he were to win the Tournament Of Power, and he said he would have wished for someone strong to fight or something to treat his family.

That's what I meant, I didn't buy that as an honest answer even for a second. Goku's answer, 17's wish for a cruiser ship, those were all red herrings, but pretty weak ones . Especially from Goku, who got upset at soldiers dying against Cell and wanted to have a new set of dragon balls so they could wish back everyone Cell killed. Yeah, Goku would've made the same wish. The only thing that got people thinking was the pretty dark ending of Future Trunks arc and that the writers might attempt something like that again, but that was about it.

Michsi wrote:the pretty dark ending of Future Trunks arc and that the writers might attempt something like that again, but that was about it.

You mean the ending in which Trunks went back in time to a point where everything was fine, negating all negative effects of the arc on his timeline, and as a bonus he and Mai now have dopplegangers who can help them out in saving the world, or since their world is protected they could go off and found the Time Patrol, or do you mean the ending in which Goku and Vegeta returned to their normal timeline having learned and gained utterly zilch, but having had a couple of pretty decent fights and hung out with Trunks a bit...?

Akira Toriyama wrote:Like many things people endlessly insist that I said, I never said this.